RE: BANANAFISH digest 26
Malcolm Lawrence (Malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Tue, 01 Jul 1997 16:09:07 -0700
>and about holden being a male only icon, i'm genuinely surprised at how
>politically correct you lot are. i mean there's not A SINGLE ONE of you
>who thinks a girl can't fully appreciate holden's standpoint? wow!
Well I for one never meant my silence on the matter to implicate any sort
of complicity, and I read enough voices of dissent to the post to consider
the issue a dead one already, and as such I didn't exactly want to see this
thread continue because it's a pretty ridiculous premise from the start.
But as far as historical context is concerned, when the character of Holden
was first unleashed on the culture I believe the female zeitgeist still had
a ways to go to catch up on post W.W.II/existential angst, primarily
because there were fewer options for females outside of societally approved
domesticity, options which really left no room for such brave
questioning...something which most, if not all, of Salinger's female
characters struggle with every holy step of the way.
Oh, wait...you said "can't" not "can." Oh well. :)
Anyhoo, I not only think that a girl can fully appreciate Holden's
standpoint but I also like to think that Holden's spirit is not
gender-specific. In fact, when I created the character of Estrelica I
wanted to address many of the tenets that the character of Holden Caulfield
brings up but from a female point of view, as told from the pen of a male
who has observed enough about the fallout of existential angst and Zen
salvation from a male's perspective for so long as to see if and how
females would react similarly and accordingly.
Estrelica can be found here most days:
http://www.wolfenet.com/~malcolm/evindex.htm
Malcolm